Last year, Pope Francis demoted American Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke by removing him as head of the Apostolic Signatura (the Vatican's high court) and giving him a perfunctory post at the Knights of Malta. This was a big deal because Burke is a fire-breathing reactionary who rose high under Pope Benedict, and his demotion...

Yesterday's historic march across Paris included over 40 world leaders expressing solidarity for France after the Charlie Hebdo massacre., but if you read Haredi newspaper Precursor, you'd believe that none of them were women.

The impregnation process may be a “ravishing” or seduction or some kind of titillating but nonsexual procreative penetration. The story may come from an Eastern or Western religious tradition, pagan or Christian. But these encounters between beautiful young women and gods have one thing in common. None of them has freely given female consent as a part of the narrative. ( Luke’s Mary assents after being not asked but told by a powerful supernatural being what is going to happen to her, “Behold the bond slave of the Lord: be it done to me . . .”)

Who needs consent, freely given? If he’s a god, she’s got to want it, right? That is how the stories play out.

Whether or not the delectable young thing puts up a protest, whether or not seduction requires deception, whether or not the woman already has a husband or love, whether or not she is physically forced, the basic assumption is that the union between a god and a woman is overwhelming in an orgasmic way, not a bloody, head-bashed-against-the-ground kind of way. And afterwards? Well, what woman wouldn’t want to be pregnant with the son or daughter of a god?

Underneath this remarkably enduring and widespread trope lie two assumptions that, in their most primitive form, may trace their roots all the way back to evolutionary biology.

A couple of months ago, I saw Seth Andrews (The Thinking Atheist) give a talk on how Christians co-opt just about everything in secular culture. For every great musician, or book, or movie… or fast food logo… there’s a Christian equivalent.

Though ‘Wicca’ and ‘paganism’ are often used interchangeably, paganism encompasses a diverse community including Druids, Shamans, Odinists and Heathens. Wicca itself, has many sub-sections: Gardnerian, Alexandrian, Faery, Pictish and Kitchen Wicca are among the many. Though no single set of beliefs, tests or practices are shared by them all, they can be roughly characterised by: polytheism, the belief in multiple deities; pantheism, the belief that the spiritual and material universes are connected; belief in the afterlife; and an emphasis on ritual. And, like any widespread belief, paganism is not immune to infighting and disagreements.

Almost half a century before the Salem Witch Trials, the Colony of Connecticut executed the first person accused of witchcraft in America. This was a victim named Alse Younge about whom nearly nothing is known except her dubious place in history as a macabre footnote.

Over fifty years ago, a group of pranksters founded a satiric religion devoted to creating conspiracy theories so insane that nobody would ever believe uncritically in conspiracies again. They called themselves the Discordians.

No, you can’t deny women their basic rights and pretend it’s about your ‘religious freedom.’ If you don’t like birth control, don’t use it. Religious freedom doesn’t mean you can force others to live by your own beliefs.

(CNN) – Kate Kelly, a lifelong Mormon who’s spearheaded a fight for equal opportunities for women in her church, was convicted of apostasy Monday and excommunicated from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The verdict, decided by a panel of male judges who convened Sunday, came to her by way of an e-mail sent by her former LDS Church bishop in Virginia, Mark Harrison. Kelly described the verdict as “exceptionally painful.”

"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives."

A fascinating snapshot of religious influences in America. Never would have guessed that Buddhism was so popular over such a wide swathe of the West of the country, and the number 2 religion in Arizona is Hinduism!

Evangelical teachings on repentance and forgiveness create a tremendous problem when it comes to rape or other forms of abuse. If you commit a sin and repent of it, God forgives you. I remember hearing Psalm 103:12 quoted constantly: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Of course, this was always said in a positive way—isn’t it awesome that God forgives us no matter what? But it doesn’t must mean God forgives us. It also means God forgives rapists, child molesters, and so on—fully and completely.

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